Andrew Devine – Gattonside/Edzell

September 2017

Man admits possessing indecent photos of children

POLICE raided a Gattonside house and found scores of disturbing child porn images on a 35-year-old man’s computer.

Andrew Devine had sorted the images into folders and categorised them, Jedburgh Sheriff Court was told.

His behaviour was described as “obsessive” with many in the most serious section Category A featuring children aged between five and 14 years having penetrative sex with adults or other children.

Devine – now living in Edzell in Angus – pleaded guilty to possessing indecent photographs of children at the Gattonside property between April 2013 and September 2016.

He also admitted a second charge of taking or permitting to be taken indecent photos of children.

A not guilty plea to a third charge of being in possession of extreme porn images was accepted by the Crown.

Procurator fiscal Graham Fraser said police arrived with a search warrant at 8am on September 19 last year saying someone in the property was suspected of being involved in uploading or downloading child pornographic material.

It soon became apparent that Devine’ parents had no knowledge and Devine himself insisted he had not seen anything inappropriate.

However, a preliminary examination of the desktop computer showed indecent images of children.

Devine was detained and made no reply.

A more detailed examination of the desktop computer, tablet and Iphone owned by Devine and password protected discovered more images and movie files in quarantine files.

In the movie files alone 42 were Category A, 10 were Category B and six were Category C.

It was found the movie files were regularly being accessed and being viewed in the early hours of the morning on the day the search warrant was in force.

More images and movies were discovered after a more detailed inspection of Devine’s computer equipment.

Mr Fraser said what was significant was the web history browser under “Young Hot Girls” showed more than 100 sexualised chat messages in that application with some making reference to incest and bestiality.

The fiscal concluded:”What was striking was the accused claimed he had not got access to any of this. But the child material was stored in user generated folders.

“There is considerable evidence of sorting and categorising them.

“It was a fairly organised accessing of material. It was thought through and I would say rather obsessive.”

The court was told Devine had lived in Aberdeen till he was 22 but moved with the family to Crete.

On their return to Scotland they had stayed at a property in Gattonside but he had since moved back north.